Fivefold increase in cream production to meet Christmas demand

To satisfy Britain’s appetite for mince pies and Christmas puddings, Arla Foods UK, the farmer-owned dairy company, produced and sent out nearly five times more cream than average in the week running up to Christmas, adding up to over 6 million pots.

As the UK’s largest cream producer, supplying the majority of retailers, Arla’s fresh cream production increased from an average of 1.32 million pots a week to a staggering 6.27 million last week as households began getting ready for Christmas. This was in addition to the record-breaking 4.4 million pots of seasonal alcohol and flavoured cream that were produced for this festive season.

Most of the production took place at Arla’s Stourton (Leeds) and Oakthorpe (London) sites, with teams at two other sites on stand-by to give additional support as required, as consumers whipped up a host of festive recipes.

As well as the traditional brandy cream, the festive Christmas cream season now brings everything from ‘Champagne Cocktail’, ‘Channel Island Clementine’ to ‘Cointreau Cream’.

The flavours are extensively researched and developed by Arla’s new product development teams who spend a year engaging with and combing through retail, customer and market insight to anticipate and respond to consumer trends. This year’s favourites included winter warmers such as ‘toffee & pecan’, ‘gingerbread,’ and ‘stem ginger.’

Tomas Pietrangeli, managing director Arla Foods UK, said:

“Cream and Christmas creams are a festive dinner staple, and our sites do an impressive job of scaling up to meet the significantly increased demand for fresh cream in the holiday season.

“And, of course, cows don’t stop producing milk at Christmas so we have tankers on Christmas day collecting milk from our farmers, enough to fill over 1.2 million glasses!”

Arla Foods is a global dairy company and co-operative owned by 12,700 dairy farmers with circa 2,700 of whom are British.

Dating back to 1881, Arla’s purpose is to secure the highest value for its farmers’ milk, while creating opportunities for their growth. With production facilities in 11 countries and sales offices in a further 30, Arla is the world’s fifth largest dairy company and largest supplier of organic dairy products. Arla has a total of more than 18,000 colleagues and its products are sold under the well-known brands Arla®, Lurpak® and Castello® in more than 100 countries.

Arla Foods UK is the largest dairy company in the country and is home to leading dairy brands Anchor®, Cravendale, and Lactofree® with a turnover of €2.9 billion. As well as being a leading supplier of fresh milk, number one in butter, spreads and cream, Arla is the UK’s largest cheese manufacturer. It has also built the world’s largest fresh milk facility located at Aylesbury and has plans for it to be the first zero carbon site of its kind. The UK business has a team of approximately 3,500 colleagues located at its dairies, distribution centres and head office.